In recent years, network technologies are developed rapidly and various network devices and equipments are introduced instantly and used extensively in our life as well as working environments of different industries. This trend not only expedites the speed and efficiency of the distribution of information, but also brings tremendous convenience to our life and work. At present, many corporations are using local area network or Internet for the transmissions of internal and external information. However, there are so many different network devices and equipments that bring many management problems to network administrators. Therefore, it is one of the key points for network administrators and managers to find a way of managing many network devices on a network.
In general, a network device on the network can be set and managed by one of the following methods:
1. A method adopts a simple network management protocol (SNMP), such that network administrators can use a computer at a remote end to logon a network to enter into a setup menu of each network device for setting, modifying and managing the network devices.
2. Another method adopts a TELNET protocol, such that network administers can set and manage each network device via Internet.
3. A further method builds a web server in each network device, such that network administrators can use a web browser to set and manage each network device via Internet.
From the methods above, most existing network management systems collect the information of each network device through different management protocols by executing network software of a server system for the management purpose. However, existing management methods still have the following problems:
1. All managed network devices require an individual IP addresses and none of the network devices can have the same IP address of another network device.
2. Network administrators must know the IP address of each network device in order to correctly enter into the setup menu of each network device. From the description above, network administrators not only needs to know the preset IP address of each network device, but also needs to have the concept and capability of setting and managing the IP address.
3. When each network device is set up or modified, users need to check the IP address of the first network device in order to enter into a setup menu for setting the network device, and then exit the menu. Users need to find out the IP address of the next network device to logon and set up the next network device, and then exit the menu. The same process is repeated until all network devices are set. If there are ten network devices, administrators have to go through the same setup procedure for ten times or modify the foregoing setup (for both management end and user end) for any change to the network devices. Such arrangement definitely wastes tremendous manpower and time.
4. Although the foregoing setup and management methods are considered as a central management, these methods substantially belong to a distributed management since the setup of each network device is independent.
Therefore, it is one of the important subjects of the management of network devices to find a way of simplifying the network management and setup process without changing a user's original using habits, so that the setup and management operations of the network devices can be simpler to reduce the operating time, and the management end can manage many network devices distributed at different places more quickly.